urbanSTL

out xmas shopping today... Galleria parking lot to West County parking lot in under 7 minutes... the new 40 sure is convenient.

Going down Manchester through Maplewood is a nightmare now. The road goes down to 1 lane for a few blocks, resulting in a horrible bottleneck. The road is just not meant to accommodate that much traffic at one time. I have decided to avoid the area, which is a shame as this means I will be avoiding any stops at Maplewood establishments, at least during the day time.

Twice a week I need to get from Tower Grove Park to Brentwood Blvd. south of the Galleria. My choices are to take Forest Park Parkway to 170 S to Eager Rd. (there is always a backup on the Brentwood Blvd ramp). Or I can white-knuckle it through Maplewood on Manchester Ave. Another choice is to take 44 and wind through Webster Groves over to Brentwood Blvd. Bit out of the way. Anyone have another route suggestion? Not looking fwd to another 11 months of this.

You can cut over to Chippewa/Watson Rd to head west. Take a right at Laclede Station/Hanley and follow that north up to Manchester. Gets around Maplewood. Watson Road is pretty quick considering it goes through the dead zone in my neck of the woods (Shrewsbury/Afton). However, not sure if you will save time considering how far south you end up.



I think it is a double edge for Maplewood businesses. A lot more traffic, they might not want to stop now but give it six months when people remember that Maplewood has something different then your typicall box store and chain eateries. I happen to take advantage of the Ace Hardware on Manchester.

^^ You could also take Manchester to Mitchell (on the west side of the Restaurant Supply Depot Store). Take Mitchell to north on McCausland for ~ 1/2 mile. Take a left on Dale, which takes you all the way to Hanley or Eager. It might take longer, but you'll be moving the whole time and not have to worry about d-bags going straight in the left-only lane at McCausland/Manchester.

I finally had a reason to take the new highway today. All I can say is it's one butt-ugly stretch of road. Nothing but sound walls as far as the eye can see. Just like the highway at the end of Brazil (without the ads). Really, really horrible.

Prosperi, who lives in Richmond Heights and owns the Kirkwood Imo's Pizza, says he noticed the problem shortly after the Missouri Department of Transportation opened the McKnight bridge over Highway 40 last summer. "It's like they must have been looking at their plans upside down," he said, also pointing out that the old bridge, which was built about 1940, had a sidewalk on both sides.



Linda Wilson, MoDOT's spokeswoman for all things relating to the Highway 40 rebuild, concedes that the sidewalk design on McKnight isn't ideal. But, she said, the highway department's hands were tied. "We try to do what we can (for pedestrians), but we had a tight-built environment that we had to work with," she said.



http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/c ... enDocument



The car rules

I love how they try to justify a poor decision on sidewalks. Admit it, you screwed up / didn't think about pedestrians - or just don't care.

My guess is that the engineer drawing up the plans looked at the specs, realized that they couldn't fit sidewalks on each side of the bridge without securing additional right-of-way so a decision was made to cut out the sidewalk without ever thinking about it how it might relate to the surrounding environment.



I understand that MODOT had one job--build a bridge within the set aside right-of-way, but it would have been nice if the engineers drawing up the plans paid more attention to interrelation with the surrounding environment. I also think a lot of the blame falls on the City for not identifying the problem when they reviewed the plans (assuming they had an opportunity to review the plans) and work with MODOT for a solution prior to construction.

Grover wrote:I really do want more sidewalks, but this area of the STL metro is an incredibly unfriendly walking area and will remain so until more density is built regardless of MODOT's work on 200 ft of McKnight.

Yeah, I could blame MoDOT for that, but the motorists in their speeding Lexus and BMW SUVs along this stretch are culpable as well.

ThreeOneFour wrote:
Yeah, I could blame MoDOT for that, but the motorists in their speeding Lexus and BMW SUVs along this stretch are culpable as well.

That's probably me...

Moorlander wrote:That's probably me...

Shame on you. Don't you know it's only acceptable to terrorize cyclists and pedestrians as long as you drive a Prius?



I'm being nosy: Is it a Bimmer or a Lexus? Either way, great choice.

A hand me down BMW carpool mobile

^ Not too shabby for a hand-me-down. Let me tell you about the Oldsmobile I had in high school. Oh wait, never mind.

it's actually a company car for work..but I get your point.



So looks like they might have those sound walls finished by june.

Moorlander wrote:So looks like they might have those sound walls finished by June.

Speaking of those walls, could MoDOT have chosen an uglier design?



These make the ones in South County along I-270 look striking by comparison- at least each panel is one piece on those walls.



So I saw a special on KTVI Sunday morning about the 64/40 rebuild, and Linda Wilson was on defending the sound walls. She talked about how they are required when new lanes are constructed, and said of course everything looks worse now because it's winter and it's all gray. In other words, just wait for the trees and flowers to bloom, and those nondescript slabs of concrete will look so much better.



The trouble is, there are stretches of soundwalls that are built right up to the highway, so no amount of new landscaping or existing greenery will diminish the canyon effect of the new highway. The highway itself is a vast improvement over its predecessor, but the soundwalls have ruined one of the few attractive stretches of highway in metro St. Louis IMHO.

ThreeOneFour wrote:

Moorlander wrote:So looks like they might have those sound walls finished by June.

Speaking of those walls, could MoDOT have chosen an uglier design?



These make the ones in South County along I-270 look striking by comparison- at least each panel is one piece on those walls.



So I saw a special on KTVI Sunday morning about the 64/40 rebuild, and Linda Wilson was on defending the sound walls. She talked about how they are required when new lanes are constructed, and said of course everything looks worse now because it's winter and it's all gray. In other words, just wait for the trees and flowers to bloom, and those nondescript slabs of concrete will look so much better.



The trouble is, there are stretches of soundwalls that are built right up to the highway, so no amount of new landscaping or existing greenery will diminish the canyon effect of the new highway. The highway itself is a vast improvement over its predecessor, but the soundwalls have ruined one of the few attractive stretches of highway in metro St. Louis IMHO.

I agree: the old Highway 40 between Lindbergh and McKnight wasn't bad for an interstate.



It would have been nice if they could have gone with the wooden sound walls that are common around Minneapolis/St. Paul.

^Agreed. Those look much less Industrial than the current ones that we have in place.

St. Louis I-64 improvements on schedule

The Associated Press



ST. LOUIS -- So far, so good for the second phase of the project to improve Interstate 64 in St. Louis.



The reconstruction work began in January 2008 on Phase 1 of the project, from Interstate 270 east to Interstate 170. Phase 2 covers the stretch from I-170 east to Kingshighway.



Gateway Constructors is handling the project for the Missouri Department of Transportation. Gateway spokesman Dan Galvin says crews have experienced no major problems. The new Hampton Avenue overpass over the highway is expected to open by May 22.





READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:

http://www.bnd.com/336/story/658089.html

I haven't driven the new stretch of road in a few weeks. My wife drove it the other day, though, and said it looked like MoDOT is painting the sound walls. Has anyone else seen this as well? As much as I hate those sound walls, some paint would be an improvement.



I'm also happy to report that the stretch of 64/40 between downtown and Kingshighway is still delightfully uncrowded. If anything there's even less traffic than there was during the first phase of construction, not surprising by any means but still nice to know whenever you need to get from downtown to the CWE in a hurry.

The sound walls are being sealed. I presume this is to protect against water damage.

Yep - it's a gray sealant. Not much of a change visually, but IMO it does look better than bare concrete. I'd love to see the ribs painted a different color.



Also, they're starting to landscape around the completed overpasses and where there's enough greenspace in front of the sound wall. They're planting (IIRC) pine trees that should help hide the walls once they mature - looks nice IMO.



-RBB